What music was popular with teenagers just before Rock and Roll hit?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by PaulKTF, May 25, 2019.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Can someone give me an idea of what artists/groups and songs would have been popular with teenagers in the late 1940's and early 1950's just before Rock and Roll (I.E: Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly) became popular? Feel free to post songs from YouTube.

    I'm just kind of curious to know what was popular with younger people around that time. Thanks!
     
    Vinyl_Blues likes this.
  2. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    Could some of the early folk revival (e.g., Weavers) have still been big then? I know that's what my dad was into at the time.
     
  3. mr. k

    mr. k Master of the Rummage (retired)

    Location:
    The Netherlands
    I remember Perry Como was popular when I was a kid. I learned about other popular artists (Sinatra, Frankie Laine, Patti Page, Guy Mitchell, Johnny Ray) well after the fact.
     
  4. bosskeenneat

    bosskeenneat Forum Resident

    The story goes that a lot of the first baby boomers were not taking to things like Patti Page, Tony Bennett, Teresa Brewer & other white singers on the "Your Hit Parade" circuit, so they wound up twisting their radio dials to the low wattage black stations that played stuff like Wynonie Harris, John Lee Hooker, Louis Jordan, LaVern Baker, and the occasional gospel number from Sister Rosetta Tharpe or the Soul Stirrers (with a young Sam Cooke). Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed....all had their small-time club gigs & slowly started seeing more white faces in the audience. (Your Elvis Presleys & whatnot.) Oh you had the kids pretty interested in Johnnie Ray or Joni James of course, but more & more attention was starting to focus on the black influx into the charts.
     
  5. Archtop

    Archtop Soft Dead Crimson Cow

    Location:
    Greater Boston, MA
    Certainly late-era swing/big band was popular - probably more among 18-19 year olds than among 13-14 year olds. In many ways, jazz was the popular music of its day in the '30s-'40s and into the first part of the '50s. So you could lump Miles' Birth of the Cool, Norman Granz' Jazz at the Philharmonic and all of the early Bird and Diz stuff (and don't forget about Bix Beiderbecke, just because it's fun to say).
     
  6. Motown Junk

    Motown Junk Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wales, UK
    In the UK, I guess it would be skiffle bands.

     
  7. t-man 54

    t-man 54 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Michigan
    Before my time, but i was told by my late aunt that she remembers Frank Sinatra being the teen sensation of the late 40's and
    Johnnie Ray for the teens in the early 50's.
     
  8. Bill Larson

    Bill Larson Forum Resident

    It must have been really lame to be a teenager back then.
     
  9. Thievius

    Thievius Blue Oyster Cult-ist

    Location:
    Syracuse, NY
    Wasn't Skiffle a thing in the 50s? Not super familiar with it, but I think even Lennon and McCartney started out playing that kind of music.

    Damn. I did the "bring up The Beatles in every thread" thing. I just came to know the term when I watched a Beatles doc.

    edit: Ah, somehow missed Motown Junk's comments on this.
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2019
    tug_of_war and mark winstanley like this.
  10. Chemically altered

    Chemically altered Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ukraine in Spirit
  11. Andy Smith

    Andy Smith .....Like a good pinch of snuff......

    Beaten to it :)
    My ma was really into Lonnie/skiffle when she was a teen.
    I think I would have been too.
     
    Motown Junk likes this.
  12. richard a

    richard a Forum Resident

    Location:
    borley, essex, uk
    In many ways it was rock n roll that kind of invented the teenager as a consumer group in itself. I’m no expert but prior to the mid fifties was this demographic considered as a separate thing? Or were teenagers just kids and then suddenly adults?
     
  13. Dylancat

    Dylancat Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cincinnati, OH
    Why?
    Sinatra, Patti Page, Johnny Ray, Nat King Cole, Kay Starr, Tony Bennett, Al Martino, etc...
    Nothing “lame” about that.
     
  14. Motown Junk

    Motown Junk Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wales, UK
    I do find it interesting how he seemingly amalgamated so many different American styles/genres into his music - country, US folk, jazz, blues.

    You can see why British teenagers who hadn't heard those American styles/genres would be taken in by skiffle.
     
    notesfrom likes this.
  15. ironbutterfly

    ironbutterfly Listening to marky mark in mono

    Nookie
     
    Ryan Lux likes this.
  16. rkt88

    rkt88 The unknown soldier

    Location:
    malibu ca
    bobby soxers became teeny boppers lol
     
    lazydawg58 likes this.
  17. Paully

    Paully De gustibus non est disputandum

    Location:
    Tennessee
    Maybe it’s just me, but the music (not the singing or lyrical content) seems quite familiar as a progenitor of Elvis and the like.
     
    Purple likes this.
  18. Blender

    Blender Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oakland
    In Southern California and much of the southwest, western swing, like Bob Wills, was huge in the years leading up to rock. KXLA 1110 AM in Los Angeles (which became KRLA and is now KRDC) became the nation's first 24-hour all country music station in 1945.
     
  19. Motown Junk

    Motown Junk Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wales, UK
    Slightly off topic, but this thread did make me think of this scene from Back To The Future when the teenagers hear rock 'n' roll for the first time.



    "Chuck it's your cousin... Marvin... Marvin Berry - you know that new sound you're looking for? Well listen to this..."
     
  20. ShockControl

    ShockControl Bon Vivant and Raconteur!

    Location:
    Lotus Land
    West Coast jazz was big for a while.

    How quickly everything went to hell for kids back then.
     
  21. Zack

    Zack Senior Member

    Location:
    Easton, MD
    I thought trad jazz too in the UK -- "It's trad, dad." I don't actually know what that sounds like though or who the biggest acts were.
     
    tug_of_war likes this.
  22. ShockControl

    ShockControl Bon Vivant and Raconteur!

    Location:
    Lotus Land
    Imagine having to endure all those terrible songs written by hacks such as Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and Johnny Mercer. My heart really goes out to those poor kids.
     
  23. O Don Piano

    O Don Piano Senior Member

    From what I have read, the term “teenager” didn’t even come into popular use until the 50s.
    It seems that young people were pretty much invisible and the adults pretty much ruled the airwaves, the movies, and radio. Kids just pretty much listened to with their parents listened to, or didn’t really have a preference fot musical tastes. So I don’t think there was anything in particular the kids gravitated to until rock ‘n’ roll came out.
     
    Murph, Zongadude, Scott222C and 8 others like this.
  24. ShockControl

    ShockControl Bon Vivant and Raconteur!

    Location:
    Lotus Land
    You honestly believe that young people did not care about music prior to rock music? Check out some videos of young Frank Sinatra performing live.
     
  25. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    I know a lady who graduated from high school in '55, and she loved Sinatra back then.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine